Goodbye for Now
by Dominus
Summary: A recap on the outcome of the anime conclusion. What happened if something vital never occured?


Goodbye for Now  
  
Nayoko Sayra  
  
This is a small one-shot set if the outcome of 'Under the Sky so Blue' happened to be something different. It's in Meryl's POV, also.  
  
***  
  
He came from a dazzling sea of suns. Draped in igneous red and with an enigma of past technology. This loner was a warrior of the ambitious love and peace battle. He also planned to conquer it out with a simple silver, six-shooter gun. He stood out among the crowd like a flower growing in a desert. A little red geranium, one that was stepped on repeatedly but always found its way again. He was someone who was always optimistic whether he wanted to be or not. An adventurer who went by many, many aliases Even though this stranger loved all the beautiful things in life, the title Vash the Stampede still came to haunt his days.  
  
Not many knew about his hidden past, unlike myself. He had a brother, by which I won't daresay his name, which wanted a haven to himself and Vash. He wanted to conceal and make 'butterflies' survive on this planet while they watched 'spiders' rot in their deathbeds. Practically, it was as if he kicked the humans out of their own world to create a plant angel haven to all his brothers and sisters, including Vash. His brother wanted humanity to cease its moral living. When Vash had found out, he disobeyed and went along living with humans. When his brother found him once more, a snap of the fingers and in a few minutes the 3rd city of July was mere, discomforted bedrock.  
  
The blame had been put on Vash as his first criminal record.  
  
Gaining the feared name 'Humanoid Typhoon', people ran in fear at the whisper of the cursed name. They thought of him as a dreadful outlaw, who would surely blow up another town at the whim of his anger and hatred. He would appear from the dunes, armed with weapons none would think of, and blow up towns as he traveled his way by. It was ghastly wrong, and Vash strived to move on.  
  
That's when we caught up with him.  
  
When the trouble became big enough, my co-assistant Milly Thompson and I were released. Chief had said this was a worthwhile mission, and would surely be honorable. Honorable? What's so great to give a certificate to if you're going to be chasing after the infamous Vash the Stampede? I hated when our chief used irony. It didn't even solve matters when he told us Milly and I were the only ones to volunteer and had the skills to manage it. Maybe this was the chance to prove ourselves, that we weren't lousy women who record insurance files and policies for a living. Just maybe.  
  
Stopping by at a bar on the edge of town, Milly had taken the time to ask for Ceylon tea while I had questioned the bartender about the appearance of the Humanoid Typhoon. He said he was twelve feet tall, dressed in red, with a bunch of cronies, and a huge green Mohawk. Eek. This was going to be more trouble than it should be. How would this Vash guy become so popular if everyone had such a vague description?  
  
It actually wasn't that hard to find our first suspect of the name Vash. You couldn't miss a guy who weighed about a ton. Apparently, he had this scrawny, broom headed blonde who was consumed with confusion. He even asked if he missed something when I introduced my profession and name to him, graciously holding out a package of doughnuts. Nope, it seems no one likes doughnuts anymore. Another guy came, a bounty hunter on the lookout for Vash the Stampede also. The man with the Mohawk, who we later found out, was of the name Descartes, argued with the bounty hunter, claiming the lanky blonde was Vash himself. Why does everyone make it so confusing? Was this criminal so sneaky, no one knew exactly what he looked like?  
  
The blonde proved to be more idiotic than we thought, running and screaming like a madman at the sight of fighting. It irked me as Milly and I rode away on Thomases, skirmishing the doughnuts back and forth between each other. Maybe I was wrong that no one liked doughnuts . . . Surprisingly, he turned out to be very helpful. He stopped Descartes abnormal boomerang, but couldn't finish off the bomb that the bounty hunter had left. Score one for the enemy. Well, who was the enemy?  
  
After a few more encounters with him, I had come to a conclusion that yes, this man was Vash the Stampede. Who else could leap in the air sideways and fire only five bullets into the spinning fist of Gofsef Nebraska and make it swerve into a building? Only he. Vash was under our noses this whole time, and I could scrunch a paper and tear it apart at the thought of not fining our main suspect so soon!  
  
I still couldn't fully believe it was he. I hated how he chickened out of fights that only involved him. If people were aimed at, that was a different matter - a big different matter. I disliked how doughnuts crumbs somehow evolved around my part of table when the praised pastries were around. It was purely disgusting, actually. His stupid mannerisms annoyed me so much that I fumed every time he stepped out of line in my course of rules. I revolted against him so much with insults, that in fact, I developed a childish crush for this one-man wonder. I, Meryl, always mentally slap myself when thinking I could love him. How could I? I just could.  
  
Milly was too involved with her own affairs of a certain priest named Wolfwood to worry about my secret. She still giggled though when I fumbled on words around Vash. He laughed along with her, and that made me absurdly angry. I hate being laughed at. But of course, he'd say he was laughing with me. And I could slap back at him that I never was laughing in the first place.  
  
Now this may sound cheesy indeed, but alas, I never told him my emotions. It sent me into vertigo around him, hyperventilating and watching his every move. Then, the pain came. He left, once more. We had chased after Vash multiple times across Gunsmoke; this time, he left for good. I knew why, he had told me before leaving, and Milly didn't take the hint. It was so unlike her, to not bug me about being depressed. She smiled small and continued on with her construction duty. Maybe water supply was more important than Vash? I dare not ask her.  
  
I strained my ear for a while, searching through dust to find any sounds at all. Gunshots arose. I shan't know what those meant either. Just another hole in my life, and maybe someone will come along and say, 'She's got a Swiss cheese life! Let's eat it!' And then everlasting sleep would come upon me. I knew he was out there. He needed to sort out personal matters of which he could tell me but never truly. This man, this idiot, had so many damned masks it sent me flying off the panhandle.  
  
Milly stepped over to me, rubbing her eyes and asking sympathetically if Vash would come back. I had smiled curtly and spoke before I thought, answering 'He wouldn't keep a good woman like me waiting.' And guess what? I must have jinxed myself because Vash didn't return once more.  
  
It took myself a year to realize that yes, Vash the Stampede, had at last left this sandy life. He was an idolized, gleaming star in the sky now.  
  
***  
  
Meryl yawned and popped her wrist, maneuvering her other forearm to rub her sag-drooped eyes. She stared down at her tribute, with little footnotes drabbled across another sheet of paper adjacent to it. Meryl beckoned Milly over to the table, giving the paper to peer read over. Milly's face turned into a grin from ear-to-ear, giggling at some parts. "It's perfect, sempai!"  
  
"Milly, I told you to stop calling me that, okay?" Meryl shrugged. She wasn't her senior anymore, so Meryl had tried to rid Milly of her old tendencies. She added on, "Thanks, anyways."  
  
The obituary, or memorial for that matter, had to be perfect. It was for him. The legendary outlaw, Needle Noggin, or in other words -  
  
"Aishiteru." Meryl clamped a hand over her mouth, silently gagging. She had just said three significant words, which in case could be classified as a sin coming from her mouth. Mouthing those three words was even a traumatizing account on her affair. Meryl suffered from love, a lot.  
  
It was hard talking to yourself when you didn't mean to. He was dead, and she couldn't even face it after a few months. New environmentalists had discovered the geo-plant and also autopsy of two bodies. She remembers clearly, because it still plagues her mind. The view was not in the least heart-warming. His right arm was part mutilated, with fingers twisted into disturbingly odd positions. His skin, well . . . You could call it melted skin now, had been scarred and slurred down into moisture either from heat or light radiation.  
  
This had to be the work of the deadly Angel Arm. Who was to think that it was capable of doing something so immense? His skin was barely even the worst part, for the rest of his torso was bloodied just like his twin brother. They looked exactly the same, besides his brother still had a homicidal glint in his opened eyes. It edged Meryl near the verge of remorse for Vash, to have a brother like that.  
  
Staring at the obituary again, she let it fall to the desk. "I hope he loves it, because he wouldn't -" Meryl stuttered to continue. Flinging a hand through her midnight blue hair, she knew that he had no personal feelings for her. Sometimes he had thought of her as a nuisance, a lady who had to follow him around and watch every capacitating move he made. But that was the only way she could ever love him; from the sidelines. This was the way her life was moving towards the future. The ticket is always open, but changing is the hardest part.  
  
"Milly, it's time to go."  
  
~owari~  
  
. 


End file.
